Kinetica Art Fair, London 2013

This was a couple of months back now but due to the stress and commitments involved with writing a thesis I haven’t had a chance to write about the Kinetica Art Fair yet.

I attended the fair in 2012 as a volunteer and really enjoyed the atmosphere and talking to the various makers and creators of the different kinetic and digital artworks. However this year there was a distinct change to the feel of the event, which I feel had something to do with the presence of prices alongside all the works and the introduction of an auction.

As an artist myself I understand the importance of being able to sell and market your artwork, and yet this consumer element did take away the approachability of some of the exhibitors and seemed to turn the fair from a showcase of great works and ideas to a market place.

My favourite work of the fair was by Krzysztof Jagieło. The piece, called Destrukt, demonstrates the breakdown of social constructs via the destruction of an object being burnt. An animation of a table and chairs interacts with the burning object, with the levels of light and dark as the object disintegrates affecting the formation of the table and chairs. The table and chairs set up represents the formations of society and in my opinion domesticity and order. The process depends on the way in which the initial object is burning, so each time the destruction of this social formation will be different. As the destruction of the burning object escalates, the chaos is represented by the increase in the movement of the domestic scene. This work seems particularly poignant currently as large majority of the world is in a state of flux and upheaval, with literal manifestations of this piece of work taking the form of events such as the London riots.

The film below shows the work in action and gives a better description of the technology behind the work:

Highlights also included:

Angel by Chris Levine consisted of a horizontal line of small green lights, which when you moved your head quickly to the left or the right, the above image could be seen. The work deals with ideas of visual perception.

Roseline de Thelin’s light sculpture Columba, created out of cut fibreglass strands, reminds me of some kind of portal or science fiction tele porter, or perhaps even a tube in which the being has been trapped and frozen.

Using a zoetrope technique and strobe lighting this work (not sure who it was by!) played with the way in which our mind perceives movement and fills in gaps to see things in sequence. There was also an even larger version of this type of work by the artist Gregory Barsmian. There is a brilliant visual of the work in action on his website so do check it out.

Alistair Burleigh’s Versus, deals with the connection between natural and virtual worlds. The work uses 360 projection mapping, glass resin sculptures and LEDs.

Work by Jonty Hurwitz, is described as modern day trompe l’oeil, playing with the boundaries between illusion and reality.

The fair was very inspirational, regardless of the shift in atmosphere this year and I would thoroughly recommend to anyone who will be in London in March next year to check the new batch of kinetic artists and art works.